Reen

Reen is a utility written in Ruby (requires Ruby installed on your machine) that mass renames/deletes files by allowing the user to modify a list. It includes a command line executable called reen that opens the user's default editor to permit interactive changes, or can be used programatically by modifying the list of file names using a code block.

To install the command line utility, use:

$ gem install reen

Or add this line to your Ruby application's Gemfile for programmatic use:

gem 'reen'

From command line, run reen with file list:

reen files [options]

where files are a list of files or wildcard pattern (defaults to *; see examples)

Options include:

• --help or -h to see options help
• --editor [EDITOR] or -e [EDITOR] to use a specific editor, or just -e to use $EDITOR
• --visual [EDITOR] or -v [EDITOR] to use a specific editor, or just -v to use $VISUAL
• --review or -r request to review and confirm changes

The editor must block until the file is closed — for VS Code use 'code -w', for Sublime use 'subl -w'. Without -e or -v, Reen defaults to $VISUAL then $EDITOR.

Examples:

reen                    # reen all files (*)
reen **/*               # reen all files in all subfolders
reen myfolder/**/*.mov  # reen all mov files in subfolders
reen -e                 # reen all files using $EDITOR
reen -v                 # reen all files using $VISUAL
reen -e vi *.md         # reen all markdown files using vi
reen --editor 'code -w' # reen all files using vscode

Upon running Reen on file list, your editor will open with a numbered list of file/folder names. Each line has a number prefix like [01] that tracks the original file. For example:

[01] LICENSE.txt
[02] README.md
[03] SETUP.txt
[04] bin
[05] bin/help
[06] bin/myexec
[07] tests
[08] tests/fixtures
[09] tests/fixtures/a.json
[10] tests/fixtures/b.json
[11] tests/fixtures/c.json
[12] tests/helper.code
[13] tests/tests.code

Specify changes to each file you wish changed modifying it in your editor:

• Change the file/folder name (after the number prefix) to rename it
• Put - (dash followed by a space) after the number prefix to delete a file or empty folder
• Put -- (double dash followed by a space) to force delete a file or non-empty folder (recursively)
• You may freely reorder lines — the number prefixes track which original file each line refers to
• Do not change or remove the [NN] number prefixes

For example, if we wanted to (a) rename LICENSE.txt to LICENSE.md, (b) delete SETUP.txt, and (c) recursively delete the bin/ folder:

[01] LICENSE.md
[02] README.md
[03] - SETUP.txt
[04] -- bin
[05] bin/help
[06] bin/myexec
[07] tests
[08] tests/fixtures
[09] tests/fixtures/a.json
[10] tests/fixtures/b.json
[11] tests/fixtures/c.json
[12] tests/helper.code
[13] tests/tests.code

Note: filenames starting with dashes (e.g., -myfile) are safe — only a dash followed by a space triggers deletion.

Upon saving and exiting the editor, Reen will execute all the changes.

Use Reen programmatically using the reen gem. In the example below, we specify that we do not want to use an actual editor to modify the list, but rather alter the list file using a block. Note that file.list contains numbered lines (e.g., [1] LICENSE.txt).

require 'reen'

glob = Dir.glob("*")
reen = Reen::Reen.new(editor: nil)

reen.execute(glob) do |file|
  # Rename LICENSE.txt -> LICENSE.md (gsub works on the path portion)
  index = file.list.index { |l| l.include? "LICENSE.txt" }
  file.list[index] = file.list[index].gsub("txt", "md")

  # Delete a file — insert "- " after the number prefix
  index = file.list.index { |l| l.include? "SETUP.txt" }
  file.list[index] = file.list[index].sub("] ", "] - ")
end

You may also pass a block with an editor specified, in which case the block is run after the editor has finished.

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake spec to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/soumyaray/reen.

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.